


Zuko decides to sneak around and accidently joins a play as the main actor.

by zukoisthebluespirit (BlockSwingPerry)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Actor AU, Childhood, Drama, Gen, School Play, Sneaking Out, Zukosneakingofftoact!, de-aged Zuko
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22068253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlockSwingPerry/pseuds/zukoisthebluespirit
Summary: Zuko finds himself in his eight-year-old body. He soon finds out he can switch between his little kid body and his teen body. He goes out to sneak around in his teen body and somehow gets involved in a local play as the main lead actor. How will he balance between lives?
Relationships: Iroh & Lu Ten (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Lu Ten & Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 155





	1. I ate all my veggies for the first time and I shrank instead of growing. I'm never listening to mom again.

Zuko woke up with his heart hammering. He had a dream. It was weird and he didn’t like it, and there was so much of the colour blue. A lot of blue. Particularly sky blue. He didn’t know why that was the only thing he could remember of the dream, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Trying to remember what went on in his dream would do no good.

He sighed and got out of bed. When his feet didn’t meet the floor when he expected, he stumbled onto the ground. The drop from the top of his bed to the floor was...unexpected. Was this a prank? Did someone raise his bed off the floor? Toph was a likely culprit. It would be quite funny to the earthbender to raise the Fire Lord’s furniture off the floor and watch, or rather hear, his fumbling and confusion over the matter. 

He quickly dismissed the Toph theory. First off, this wasn’t the bed he fell asleep on. He was Fire Lord now, so he had fallen asleep on the bed meant for, well, a Fire Lord. The large lavish bed he had been sleeping on for a year and a half now was nowhere in sight. Instead, a smaller version of the bed laid before him. It was familiar he realized. He would recognize this bed from anywhere. It was his childhood bed from before he was the Crown Prince.

And it was exactly how he remembered it. A little bit larger than the average bed with a deep red canopy over it. Which was a problem. He was quite short in his younger years so for the bed to be exactly how he remembered it, matching the proportions to his adult self, it would make the bed humongous. 

Second off, he felt _weird _. As he checked himself for anything out of the ordinary he noticed that his arms were shorter and not as muscular as they were last night.__

__Childhood bed, childlike body, and a weird dream that Zuko was now certain that the blue colour was from him being in the spirit world. The spirits were involved in this strange occurrence. He was sure of it._ _

__He had been sent back into his past self’s body? That's probably what had happened. ‘Wow,’ he thought, ‘I am really slow. I should have figured out that I’m back in my childhood body.’_ _

__Well, there was only one way to make sure he was correct on the whole him being back in his childhood body theory._ _

__Mirror, and check to see if Lu Ten was still alive. His body right now was really short, a fact reminded to him as he struggled to get his door open, so he was definitely the right age for Lu Ten to be alive._ _

__Zuko ran over to the mirror in the dressing thing room or whatever the official name for the room was that Zuko and Azula shared. It was where the servants would take him over in front of the mirror and dress him for the day. They would tell him what was happening that day and where he would need to be. He would usually be woken up to use the room before Azula, something that always irked Azula to no end._ _

__Zuko gasped as he examined himself in the mirror. It was him. The present-day, or future, him. Fire Lord Zuko in all his splendour. He was still dressed in the fancy robes that he wore during the day. But that wasn’t possible._ _

__Pain shot up his neck as he tried to look at his face. He didn’t realize that people weren’t joking when they said he was tall._ _

__Perhaps the reason why his reflection didn’t match up with his current body was to remind him he was in a different time? To tease him? Balance? Maybe if he concentrated hard enough, he would be back in his Fire Lord body and his Prince body would be his reflection._ _

__He would test that theory later when he had spare adult size clothes to change into. Making a mental note that he would have to avoid mirrors, he looked at his clothing options. After all, if his servants came to dress him and saw that his reflection didn’t match up he was sure that he would be sent to the Fire Sages to be exorcised or killed or whatever._ _

__He had a little bit of trouble putting up his hair, but other than that he didn’t have much trouble with dressing himself. He walked around the room a couple times and jumped up and down a bit. Getting a feel for his body’s limitations would prevent any embarrassments that were probably going to occur._ _

__Opening the door and taking in the morning light, Zuko felt that he could take on whatever else the universe decided to throw at him. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case._ _

__“And what are you doing up so early Prince Zuko?” said a voice that sent shivers up Zuko’s spine. Ozai stood before him, in all his bastardly glory._ _

___Don’t throw a fireball at him, don’t throw a fireball at him, don’t throw a fireball at him. Don’t show any weakness. You don’t even know if you can properly bend in this state. Don’t do it as much as you would like to and how much it pains you. YOU CAN’T. ____ _

____“I merely had a bad dream father. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I thought it would be a waste not to take the opportunity to practice my firebending,” Zuko stated evenly, purposefully being vague. He didn’t want to give information that could be fact-checked later and held against him._ _ _ _

____“That was a lot of unexpected confidence coming from an eight-year-old. Actually, I take that back. That was unexpected for you. I expect you to always answer like that instead of that snivelling you usually offer me,” Ozai gave him a stare before continuing to wherever he was going originally._ _ _ _

____‘Well, that reminded me of the good ol’ days where Father would constantly belittle me. At least I learned my age.’ He thought about Father’s hurtful words when he realized something. His father noticed his words were off. He didn’t speak like a happy go lucky little kid he used to be or now was, anymore._ _ _ _

____Uh oh. He didn’t think about acting like a little kid again. Could he successfully pull off the innocence and limited experience he had at the age of eight? What was he like when he was eight? He knew that he would have only been able to bend fire for two years, probably was still allowed to practice his sword skills, and had been removed from school and given private tutors._ _ _ _

____All of which ran into problems. Just like how an experienced assassin gives off a sense of danger even when pretending to be a normal citizen, Zuko was sure he was going to give off a sense of maturity his eight-year-old self did not possess._ _ _ _

____Could he fake being sick? So sick that he would have a personality change and no one would question his odd behaviour because he was sick? It might work. He would have to slowly act out more symptoms of sickness over the day because Ozai just saw him in perfect health. He could raise his temperature through fire bending carefully if his chi size and control over his firebending still existed. Acting sluggish and slurring his words would be no problem._ _ _ _

____But then he didn’t know if his firebending was up to the task. And besides, that was a lucid idea. It did bring up the question of whether or not his firebending was like his eight-year-old self’s or his Fire lord self’s abilities. It might even be a combination of the two. He’ll find out later, when he had the time or when the servants would fetch him for lessons._ _ _ _

____Now for the final test of whether or not he was actually in the past. Well, he already had more than enough proof that he really was, but he really wanted to see Lu Ten and give him a hug and just cry. Cry over how his death left his uncle broken and him broken. Crying over the fact that he was Fire Lord and not him. He didn’t know about being the Fire Lord. Lu Ten and Uncle had been training for this their entire lives. He just had the years from Grandfather’s death to the dreadful Agni Kai. Which he didn’t remember anything from those years really._ _ _ _

____Wiping away his watery eyes, he walked down the halls, trying to collect himself enough to act normal._ _ _ _

____He recalled that his cousin would be up earlier than normal people and would probably be out in his courtyard, relaxing and soaking up the morning sun. He went over to the entrance of the courtyard. He took a peek._ _ _ _

____And there was his cousin, honourable Lu Ten, sitting on a rock. Suddenly he felt a million years old and Lu Ten was just like a child. He knew what the war would bring, what sorrow it would cause. _He knew it would end. Lu Ten would never get that luxury. _____ _ _

______Lu Ten in his timeline would never get to see the end. He would forever be trapped in the chaos of battle, fighting for his country as foreign men surrounded him. Earth Kingdom faces were the last thing Lu Ten saw. Unfamiliar faces._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Zuko! What are you doing over there hiding? Come on out you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Lu Ten’s voice broke him out of his sad thoughts. It seemed that his cousin had noticed him ghosting the entrance. He had almost forgotten what Lu Ten sounded like._ _ _ _ _ _

______He ran over to Lu Ten and gave him a hug, hard as he could. He was warm, and he was real._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Zuko? You okay buddy?” Lu Ten asked a little out of breath. He didn’t know Zuko could hug that hard._ _ _ _ _ _

______Lu Ten looked at his cousin. He looked like he had a bad night last night. Probably a nightmare. He didn’t know if Zuko knew it, but his eyes had dark circles under them and his arms were shaky._ _ _ _ _ _

______“I had a bad dream,” came Zuko’s voice buried in his chest, “ You were killed in battle and, and, and Uncle was so sad! I didn’t see him for years!” Zuko sounded like he was about to cry._ _ _ _ _ _

______“But it wasn’t real, right?” Lu Ten’s voice was soft._ _ _ _ _ _

______“I’m right here Zuko and I’m not leaving anytime soon.” Lu Ten patted Zuko on the back and made soothing sounds. They sat like that for a while. Lu Ten comforting his shaking cousin, and Zuko desperately trying to memorize how being held by Lu Ten felt just in cause the spirits decided to be mean and yank him back into his own time randomly._ _ _ _ _ _

______Eventually, Lu Ten told Zuko that he was going to have to go eat breakfast soon. Zuko happily took his offer of joining him and his uncle for food. He skipped along, humming happily. He genuinely looked like the eight-year-old he was currently inhabiting._ _ _ _ _ _

______He was sitting down with Lu Ten enjoying his food and joking around with him when Uncle walked in._ _ _ _ _ _

______“I was sure that a party was going on with all the noise and laughter I heard coming from here!” Uncle sat down at the table._ _ _ _ _ _

______Zuko almost did a double-take at Uncle. He had forgotten how the man looked when he was a kid. His hair was a much darker grey than future Uncle, and he wasn’t nearly as...thick. He looked strong and ready to fight. He still had a twinkle of fun in his eye._ _ _ _ _ _

______“But it was just you two! Tell me what brings such excitement.” Uncle’s looked so happy with a warm ferocity that he had only when Lu Ten was alive._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Zuko here had a bad nightmare last night. He seemed pretty shaken up so I was trying to cheer him back up. Seems I was successful,” Lu Ten took a bite of his fish and swallowed. “I was thinking about helping his firebending forms with him this morning. Would you like to join us?”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Of course, of course! I heard Zuko is having a bit of trouble with his firebending. Perhaps we can fix that,” Uncle mused._ _ _ _ _ _

______“I’ve been having some trouble making my flame come out and I keep stumbling,” Zuko made up. He wasn’t exactly sure of what he had trouble with firebending specifically at eight, but he still has trouble keeping a steady flame and completing katas without falling in his Fire Lord body so it seemed like something he really would need help with._ _ _ _ _ _

______His trouble with firebending had actually almost thrown away his chance at being Fire Lord, but people really couldn’t argue with a teen that had the good grace of the Avatar. He one day hoped to get his skills to be recognized by his people, but that day was a long way away he was sure._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Well, if you've finished eating then we should go out and into a practice room.” Uncle stood and stretched. Zuko and Lu Ten finished off their plates and followed Uncle into one of the palace’s practice rooms._ _ _ _ _ _

______“To start off with, how about you two show me the basic katas usually done to warm up?” Uncle now faced them, and Lu Ten had walked over the other end of the room to give space for the flames that were about to come._ _ _ _ _ _

______He stood at attention for the first kata and brought his hands up, bringing up and out his inner flame. Something felt off about it. He dismissed it as he fell in synch with his cousin. He moved the flame through the different katas, kicking out a small burst of flame when the routine demanded it._ _ _ _ _ _

______“The flame is just an extension of you. You should not force it to come out. It should come out naturally, like breathing,” Uncle was circling around them to inspect their forms, “And so one must make sure their breath is strong and steady.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______He hit the back of Zuko’s knee and Zuko stumbled down. He was out of breath. Uncle told him to be more low to the ground and to slow his breathing down. He went to try it again._ _ _ _ _ _

______As he went through the moves he saw that his flame was weak. Baby weak. It hadn’t even been this bad when he was first starting out, what had happened? He tried pushing more furiously into his inner fire. His inner fire was still the same as future Zuko (which actually physically pained him as he firebended. Too much heat in his little body.), yet his flames were weaker and not as stronger as one would expect._ _ _ _ _ _

______Uncle and Lu Ten had noticed and he could see them frowning. Uncle motioned for Zuko and Lu Ten to stop._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Nephew, are you okay?” Uncle looked genuinely worried. He took Zuko’s hands and examined them for injury._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Have you been pushing too hard? I don’t want you to injure yourself practicing.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Zuko brushed off his Uncle. He didn’t want to risk the chance Uncle would bring this problem up with his father or the palace healers. His father would probably take this chance to disown him or something, and the healers, who were trained in spotting something off in the spirit, would definitely find something wrong with him._ _ _ _ _ _

______“‘I’m fine. I’m just, uh, tired. Look I can prove it to you. I’m wide awake now.” An obvious lie, but if the universe was liking him today he could pull off a move with his normal power._ _ _ _ _ _

______He attempted to do a simple kick and push some flame out from his foot, but that wasn’t what happened._ _ _ _ _ _

______Imagine a river with a dam blocking it’s pathed and the river spent all its time trying to bypass the blockage. And suddenly the dam breaks free and the water bursts out and rushes to recover lost time. Now apply this image to Zuko’s firebending. You can imagine what happens next._ _ _ _ _ _

______An impressive flame shot off his foot, much bigger than Zuko was trying to aim for. The gang looked out at it in awe until they realized the roof was on fire. Oops._ _ _ _ _ _


	2. Zuko makes a Detective Conan reference.

The roof was pretty badly burned from Zuko’s kick. Luckily Iroh and Lu Ten agreed not to tell Zuko’s father and mother about the incident. Iroh offered to stop firebending practice for today so that they (he) could rest. Zuko agreed. There were some kinks in Zuko’s firebending that needed to be worked out alone and it would be unwise to fumble with them in front of an audience that might report the odd doings of his bending.

‘Well, at least I got to figure that out with Uncle and Lu Ten. If I had problems with my bending at my lessons with my tutors I have no idea what would have happened.’ 

Already making plans to get his bending back in control, and feeling a little bit more confident, Zuko was ready to find some adult size clothes to test out his mirror theory he had earlier. After some sneaking around and rummaging in the palace’s laundry (Sorry to the people whose clothes he stole. He at least tried making sure that his outfit was a mixture of multiple outfits so that his victims would only have to buy one article of clothing instead of an entire outfit, which was expensive) and got the outfit he was going to use if he really did go all big.

He put the clothes in his secret childhood hiding place, the small chest in his closet. When he opened it, he had found that it held a few childhood toys he had forgotten about.

‘Man, I used to love playing with these. I used to pretend that the Agni was waging furious battles with the other main spirits,’ He absently thought. Laying his clothes on the bottom and strategically placing the toys so that if it was opened by someone other than him, all they would see would be toys. Afterwards, he headed towards the door. 

As he walked out, he was greeted by his mother and sister. Azula looked like her cute little self, just as he remembered her and even though he knew she wasn’t nearly as bad as her future self, he knew that there was still an innate sense of cruelty in her. 

“Yes? May I help you?” He asked. He squinted at Azula. With her wide smile and gloating eyes, he knew she was up to something. 

“Azula and her friends have invited you to play with them! Isn’t that great? Perhaps you can finally make some friends!” Zuko’s mother exclaimed, already pushing Zuko and Azula towards the direction of the courtyard. Great. His afternoon will now be spent with Azula and company. He readied his nerves to the pain that was sure to come because, of course, this was going to be torturous. Okay, maybe he was over exaggerating, but he really didn’t want to deal with people right now. 

Azula happily, or evilly????, lead Zuko over to the courtyard. Little Mai and Ty Lee were seated looking bored and perked up when Zuko and Azula arrived. Well, Ty Lee definitely perked up. She did a cartwheel over to Zuko and exclaimed how it was so good to finally meet the elusive prince and did a little pirouette in happiness. The spin looked like it needed a little bit of work. Her foot should be a little more pointed and it needed to be up closer to her knee. 

Mai had a strange look on her face and Zuko wasn’t used to the amount of emotion she was casually showing. Maybe she was sick. 

“What’s your name? Do you know any acrobatics? Are you familiar with the art of chi blocking?” Asked Ty Lee in rapid succession. 

“Uh, my names Zuko! And no, I don’t know any acrobatics. Yes, to the chi blocking. I’ve heard it’s sometimes used to numb people in medical facilities, in addition to its contribution to battling benders,” Zuko awkwardly answered, holding up his hand to his chin as if trying to recall information buried deep in his head. 

“He’s familiar with some basic ballet moves,” Azula stage whispered to Ty Lee. 

“Hey! That was when I was little! I thought it would be a skill applicable to sneaking around!” 

Zuko had forgotten about his brief obsession with ballet. In all fairness, he probably wouldn’t have gotten so good at picking up his sneaking skills without the dance experience. He remembered the day his father had found out. He shuddered. 

“Well, I can teach you some acrobatics and you can teach me some dance!” She bent over placing her hands slow on the ground trying to get him to do the same.

Ty Lee showed him how to do a headstand. She at first tried doing a handstand, but Zuko wasn’t strong enough yet in his younger body to keep his entire body held up by his stick arms. Zuko kept turning bright red as he attempted to do a headstand and would fall over, usually exposing his belly. Azula and Mai looked on with amusement. 

“Come on Azula! Mai! If Zuko can do it so can you!” Ty Lee called out to the two. Mai tried once and after getting tangled in her thick clothing declared her outfit not suitable for the exercise and said she would try some other time when she had on appropriate clothing. 

Azula had more confidence and tried it out despite her lack of talent at it. “This is stupid,” She grumbled after the fifth time. “Let’s do something else.” 

“Oh?” Zuko said even though he knew where this was heading. She was probably going to ask Mai to try out her knives and ‘accidentally’ have Mai hit him, or maybe Ty Lee try out her chi blocking. He really hoped it was Mai because he can dodge knives with ease, but chi blocking hurts especially if you're inexperienced and hit the wrong place.

“Let’s have Ty Lee try out her chi blocking! Last one standing gets to sneak a cookie from the kitchens!” Azula said already dodging a jab from Ty Lee. As Azula blocked carefully with her arms letting Ty Lee’s blows slide off her arms and legs, Zuko was mentally preparing himself to get hit with a spine-tingling jab. 

Ty Lee suddenly did this weird twisty flip and Mai was now the one trying to sidestep and hop occasionally to dodge Ty Lee. Zuko kept moving in a constant circle around the two trying to predict when it would become his turn when a shove from behind him left him open to Ty Lee. Ty Lee, of course, took action and both his arms got chi blocked. 

Using up all his energy and concentrating on the chi paths in his arm, he sent a wave of inner fire through his blood to speed up the time it would take for the chi path to start flowing properly. He had learned this trick through many mock battles in his childhood with Ty Lee. While he worked on that, he breathed fire in Ty Lee’s general direction. The play fighting stopped and everyone turned to look at Zuko with wide eyes. He realized his mistake.

Breathing fire was a hard technique that few could do. Yes, Fire Lord Zuko did it all the time and so did Banished Prince Zuko with ease, but that was after three years of living with and training with Dragon of the West, Iroh. Iroh was considered the best in the history of the move and had perfected the technique to the point where he could move it not unlike a dragon, twisting and curving to suit his needs. 

But he was not Fire Lord Zuko or Banished Prince Zuko, he was just regular old Prince Zuko, a disappointment to the royal family that couldn’t bend flame properly. Certainly not a person you would expect to breathe fire. 

“What?” Zuko’s voice did not give any indication of the panic his mind was currently in. 

“How did you do that? Not even Father has taught me that move.” Azula huffed a bit of air trying to breathe fire. Little sparks flew out her mouth and died. 

“Uhhh, I figured that since Uncle is really good at breathing fire and I asked him and he said that he played a lot of instruments during the time he was figuring out how to perform the move, that it had something to do with breathe control. I just worked really hard at that,” He fibbed. Well, half lied. Iroh did make him learn tsungi horn for music night on his ship, and breathe control he gained from playing really did help him later on when his uncle gave his daily lessons. 

“I’d rather die than have Iroh try to teach me tsungi horn,” Azula deadpanned.

“Awww,” Ty Lee whined, “ But then we could start a band! Zuko learn the koto because it sounds really pretty and he seems the type and Azula you can be the tsung-”

“Maybe some other time. Besides, it’s getting pretty late for you and Mai. Doesn’t your mother want you in time for some early dinner?” It was hours until it would be a reasonable time to prepare for an early dinner, so Zuko knew that Azula had gotten annoyed at the idea that Ty Lee would force them to play in a band. It was fun to see Azula not totally in control of everyone. 

Anyways it gave Zuko time to sneak away from everyone and just relax. Before he knew it, it was dinner time. He rushed over to his mother’s room and found that Azula was already there with Mother. Before, when Zuko was living this timeline for the first time, Zuko would talk away with Mother leaving Azula to pick at her food and saying snide remarks from time to time. Zuko, wiser this time, tried to engage Azula in a way that would strengthen Azula and Mother’s bond and would challenge her cruel view of the world. 

After dinner was over, Zuko felt that he had made small progress with this task. He had started a small squabble near the end of dinner, but it fizzled out and ended well. Now, onto better things. 

He went into his room and closed the door and when he was sure that Azula was in a deep sleep, Zuko took out the small chest in his closet, careful not to scratch the floor and make noise. After taking out the toys that covered the clothes he took from the laundry and put in the chest earlier that morning, he locked the door. 

‘Okay, so how am I going to do this?’ Zuko thought. A very important question indeed. One did not have the luxury of hearing stories about how to force your body to grow or shrink. Well, not counting the really good book series he had read in his childhood about a teen detective shrinking down to his little kid self. He was sure that particular book’s many hooks were that he couldn’t switch bodies easily.

Maybe he just had to really concentrate on the idea of being Fire Lord Zuko. As he imagined his older body, he felt pretty stupid. It didn’t work and he felt awkward trying to imagine how awesome his older body would be compared to the current one he was in. He kept getting distracted. 

And then an idea came into his head. When he was firebending earlier, hadn’t there been a weird feeling in his flame? Perhaps he needed to dig down into his inner flame and pull on that strange feeling and he would then find himself successful and in his Fire Lord body.

There was a concentrated spot of power in the heart of his flame, one that wasn’t there before. 

There were many different ways of accessing one’s inner flame, most involved a specific trigger memory. For Zuko, when he was little he was told he needed to access his inner rage so he used Azula and Father’s hurtful words. But then years later, just before he went to go and try to become Aang’s Firebending teacher, he had no more rage to give. His source of firebending had run out. He didn’t have it in him to keep on raging in life.

He and Aang had to go find the secret to firebending which turned out to involve dragons. Since then he had to use the image of him opening to door to find a smiling Mother to invoke the same pretty feeling he had when he saw dragon’s flame. 

He imagined a similar scenario. He was walking in the palace to the hall where the portraits were held and was looking fondly at the portrait with all of Avatar Aang’s teachers. As he reached up to stroke longingly at his scarred smile, he felt a change. Opening his eyes, the walls in the real world were swimming and light seemed to defy the laws of science and danced wildly in his eyes. His body fell.

He soon acquainted his face with the floor. 

When he awoke, he felt the same confusion he felt this morning and he could now easily recognize it as his body getting used to its new size. Shuffling over to the clothes set beside him, his fingers feeling like someone else’s, he pulled the clothes on.

Stuffing pillows underneath his blanket to give the illusion of a sleeping body, and briefly checking out his body in the mirror to make sure he still had all his limbs, he snuck out the palace. 

He looked like a plain young adult so he could pass off as some lower noble’s son or a particularly high servant or scribe’s son if he was stopped by the guards. He couldn’t exactly hang around the high noble’s streets so he headed off towards the town at the base. He enjoyed the feeling of the cool night air on his scar. 

Shouts of anger and dismay quickly hit his ears. Someone was fighting near the market and was drawing quite a crowd. Pushing past people, Zuko, or Lee if anybody were to asked his name, soon saw the source of the yelling. It was a group of people evenly divided, one half hiding behind a young woman and the other confidently backing up a young man. 

“Han Li! That’s such a stupid and egotistical play! I refuse to perform that for the Fire Festival! I’m tired of you thinking you’re hot as blue flame!” The young woman yelled. She was a lady of average height with light brown hair pulled up into a loose bun. 

“Yeah, well guess what? I’m the lead male actor here, Yulin, I get to decide what we perform,” Han, who was really pretty, yelled back. This was apparently the wrong thing to say to Yulin. She took a furious step forward and Han took a wise step backwards. 

“Yes, because I made you lead actor! You know what we’ll settle this the classic way. Play war! You go and do whatever trash you want to perform and we’ll do a proper play. Whoever the crowd chooses as the best wins. And you think that just because you’re the lead male actor you get to dictate what the rest of the play does? You’re not that good an actor. In fact, my team could win with any man because it would be easy to replace such a terrible actor. In fact, we will win with,” Yulin reached into the crowd at random and with a dawning horror grabbed Zuko’s arm, “This man right here! He’ll blow your shoes off!” 

With that, she turned and marched her half of the acting crew out of the market along with Zuko.

“I’m really sorry for roping you into this, but please do not give Han Li the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart,” The girl leaned into Zuko’s ear and whispered. She held his hand tight as if she knew that if she let go, he would try and bolt. 

Zuko decided that he wouldn’t embarrass the girl in front of Han Li. He had only known Han Li for two minutes and he already disliked the guy. At the very least he should see how this situation panned out. 

The girl lead the group off to an alley. She stopped at a dead end and turned to Zuko. 

“I am so so sorry for picking you out of the crowd at random!” The girl bowed low in apology and then straightened up so fast Zuko could see her bounce. “You see, Han Li and I don’t always get along and I was only really tolerating him because he was part of the play that got us on the list for the stage for the Fire Festival that the royal family will be wat-” 

“Woah! Too fast,” Holding up his hands to signal ‘Stop, you are about to tell me a lot of information at once please let me regulate the amount of information as I can not handle rushed words.’ 

“Back up. Who are you? And what did you just sign me up for?” 

“Oh! I’m Yulin, the lead female actor of our acting group. This over here,” She waved a hand at a burly young man who would have looked intimidating save for the fact of his kind face, “Is Atsushi! He does the sound effects and lighting! Daiki, Daichi, and Daisuke are these three next to me. They do small roles and since Daiki is on the small side he sometimes acts out the female parts that are needed. Shin is the little one hiding behind me, but he has a big heart!” 

Daiki, true to Yulin’s words, was indeed small and slender and looked like a more feminine version of what Zuko assumed was his brothers, Daichi and Daisuke. They must be triplets. Zuko would almost mistake them for Earth Kingdom citizens if not for their amber eyes. 

Shin was a dirty little thing, his nose runny and his hair looking like it would break brushes before any tangles could be teased out. Shin bolted out from his observing spot to grab Zuko by his legs. 

“Please Sir, I don’t wanna lose to Han Li! Do you think you can be an actor in our play and beat him up? Not with fists though, because Yulin would throw you in the river. Please, please, please!” 

DAmn it, Shin really knew how to act cute. 

“Fine. But that’s only because my mother was an actor and she’d be thrilled to hear I’ve joined a play.” 

“Yay!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many things going on in my life sometimes it's very hard to remember my own name much less try to write! I feel like I've improved my writing, at least in the length department, but sadly as I was reading this I realized I still have a long way to go. Anyways, my little sister's birthday is tomorrow!!! She's turning 8! I failed my band exam!! (not really though, it's too early too tell, but when I was playing my in person part my band teacher highly recommended trying out for Honors Band. It would be cool to get into that so I can go out of country.)


End file.
